Steam wax beans until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the oil, vinegar, dill, and red pepper in a large bowl. Add steamed wax beans and toss to coat. Serve warm, or chill for 30 minutes and serve cold.

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This barely qualifies as a recipe, but these wax beans were so simple and tasty, I decided to share.

A couple weekends ago I was strolling through the Palo Alto farmer’s market when I came across two mountains of beans piled on a red checked table cloth; one pile was blue lake green beans, and the other was gorgeous cream-colored wax beans. I love green beans, but haven’t cooked much with wax beans since they’re generally less available than their green counterpart. Feeling like I wanted to try something different, I grabbed a couple of big handfuls of the wax beans, and headed home to experiment.

Once home, I considered my options: pickled, steamed, roasted, sauteed, boiled — but yet none seemed to really ‘go’ with that night’s dinner… so, into the fridge went the beans, to be prepared at some later date.

And then life got busy — I got sick, work got busy, visitors came, I went out of town — and still the beans remained unused in the fridge… About two weeks after purchasing them, I was digging through my tiny fridge and came across them. Amazingly, they still looked great! That’s one thing I LOVE about farmer’s market produce — it is SO FRESH, and it tends to keep longer than store bought produce.

So, grand plans aside, I quickly steamed the beans, and then tossed them with some olive oil, vinegar, dill, and red pepper flakes, then chilled the mixture while I prepared the rest of my dinner. The result reminded me a little of marinated three bean salad, but with a simpler, cleaner taste. And oddly, though I don’t love dill + green beans, dill + wax beans turned out to be a great combination! Who’d have thought?